Whilst it was expected the new Yimou Zhang may be China's submission, they have instead gone for a Jiang Wen film. What in hell does Zhangke Jia have to do for China to submit one of his films? Answer: make something that shows China is a pure phoney light. Ash is Purest White was unlikely to get any traction with the Academy but at least China allowed a decent release on the film on home turf as opposed to most of Jia's prior films. I suppose Jia's films just cuts too deep into a China that the Chinese Government would prefer filmmakers stayed clear of.

“Those Koreans. They’re so suspicious, you know, ever since Hiroshima.” Constance Langdon (Jessica Lange) from American Horror Story: Season One

Well, just about all of the submissions are now in. We are still waiting for China who have been delayed due to some public holidays but Zhang Yimou's latest film Shadow is highly considered to the be the 'chosen one'. Apparently the film is a return to form by Yimou who hasn't made anything of note since House of the Flying Daggers back in 2004.

I've seen 26 (updated 5 November) of the selected films so far and expect to see another half dozen or so in the coming month.

I've already written about most of the films in another thread so I'm not going to repeat myself. Only to say that this is the order that I rank the films that I have seen:

Like with the past thread, I shall be reviewing all the Foreign Language Film entries I see in this thread. Within the next six or so weeks, there's gonna be a bunch of film festivals happening and several of the entries will be screened. The lineup will include: Shoplifters, Burning, Girl, Cold War, among others. Here's the first:

Campeones, Spain (Javier Fesser) 7/10 - An arrogant pro-basketball coach is caught drunk driving and is sentenced to 90 days community service coaching a basketball team comprised of mentally disabled individuals. Hmm. Will the coach learn to humble himself and improve/inspire the team? Will there be a championship game? Will they learn the meaning of teamwork and self-worth? I think we all know where this is heading. This film is a real crowd-pleaser and it's unique because they cast actual mentally disabled actors to play the mentally disabled roles which was a wise decision, otherwise, I don't think the comedy would've worked as well. That said, this film has a lot of good laughs in it and manages to be largely tasteful and even manages to be moving in the end. That said, it's still a formulaic sports movie. But at least it's a well-crafted one.

Will it get in? It will have its fans. But it's fluff, the politically correct casting notwithstanding. I think the Academy actively looks for more artistically ambitious and "Important" with a capital I movies in this day and age. I'm leaning towards no but not out of the question.